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Ask a Widow: Photos in the Bedroom
Sometimes, I get questions from readers that really made me think. But there’s one that I got a few weeks ago that made both Chris and I think. Here’s what the email said (details have been changed, though I got permission from the writer to reprint his correspondence with me): My name is Michael and I’m the hopeful fiance to a widow. By way of some background, my love – Sarah – lost her husband Robert in 2019. She told me your blog helped her immensely so I’m writing to you. We started dating about a year after her husband died and have progressed to where we are today, living together…
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Ask a Widow: Dating With Kids
I’ve talked so much about dating as a widow that it’s strange that I haven’t written much about dating and kids. When I have written on this topic, it’s usually about how to date with small kids. Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote that’s titled, “Could My Date Be a Father to My Kids?“ Once I started dating, I found that I would very quickly move from “do I want to kiss this guy?” to “could he be a father to my children?” That made dating really difficult. I’m not a total idiot, so I didn’t say these sorts of things out loud on a first or second…
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Ask a Widow: No One Is Ready
How do you know that you’re ready to date after loss? It’s one of the most common questions I get. In fact, just the other day, I got this (edited) email from a widow who had recently become interested in someone new. It had been about 18 months after the death of her husband. It left her with some conflicting feelings: I mean, I really like the guy, but my emotions can go overboard – I grieve, I like him as a friend, I want him as a boyfriend, I just want him as a friend, etc. This is tiring me out and I don’t know how to manage. Maybe…
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Ask a Widow: What Changes Do Remarriage and Adoption Bring?
I love getting mail in my dcwidow inbox. I hear from all sorts of people, including many widows in all sorts of situations. I try and answer all of them, and every once in awhile, I can offer a bit of advice. I mean, I have no training in mental health care, but it turns out that I’ve learned a bit from just walking the planet as a widow for 4 1/2 years. In any case, I recently got an email from a woman who had a somewhat similar story to mine. Her first husband, Doug, died when her son Aaron was just 2 months old. After a number of…
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Ask a Widow: When Sex Can Be Good…and When Sex Can Be Tricky
I know a lot of widows who think a lot about sex. I’m not talking about any specific group of widows. I hear from people of all ages and backgrounds and life experiences on this blog, and one of the most common things people write to me about is sex. Is it okay to want to have sex after (fill-in-the-blank-amount-of-time) has passed since your partner died? Is it strange to desire people who you would have never desired before widowhood? Is it totally off-base to date a friend or a neighbor? Some questions are easy to answer. Anything about feelings (i.e. “is it okay to feel this way”) is easy.…
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Acts of God?
A few weeks ago, my friend Kumar asked me to speak to a group of ministers training to do a special type of work in hospitals and prisons. Kumar is a pastor who I met years ago, and someone with whom I’ve done a variety of events. We talk a lot about grief. But we also talk a lot about life, since grief is a part of it. He wanted me to talk about what I needed when Shawn was hospitalized, and then what I needed after he died. Initially, I thought about all of the logistics – the carpool rides for the kids and the grocery runs and the…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
